Scientific Misconduct

1. Scientific Misconduct

2. Overview Types of Fraud Detecting Fraud Motives How Common is Fraud? The Stem Cell Mess Reforms

3. Types of Fraud

4. Types of Fraud Business As Usual Bootlegging Research Rushing to Publish Withholding Data Withholding Information Unfair Treatment of Post-Docs & Students - The Most Common Allegation.

5. Types of Fraud Misdemeanors Improper Credit to Colleagues Improper Credit to Collaborators Re-Publishing Content - Smallest Publishable Unit Plagiarism Unethical Use of Peer Review

6. Types of Fraud Felonies Misrepresenting Results - “Cooking”: Retaining Results that Fit the Data - Clark Milliken - “Trimming”: Adjusting Data to Make it Look Extremely Accurate - “Forging”: Fabricating Data or Entire Experiments

7. Detecting Fraud

8. Honest Mistakes Physics, The Easiest Case A Crisis in Physics? Replicability Experiments are Hard! Short-range gravity Yale Axion (1985) Stanford Monopole (1982) Stanford Fractionally Charged Particles (1970s) Los Alamos Sterile Neutrinos (1995) 17 KeV Neutrino (1990s)

9. Honest Mistakes

10. Honest Mistakes Systematic Error Identifying Sources of Error Within Experiments Between Successive Experiments

11. Honest Mistakes Subjective Error What They Teach Experimentalists Luis Alvarez Self-Delusion vs. Self-Doubt Getting Experiments to Work Lowell and Mars (1890s) Maskelyn & Kinnebrook (1796) N-Rays (1903)

12. Honest Mistakes Subjective Error Finding What’s Expected Newton Cowen & Reines Characterizing the Data Double Blind Solutions The Trade-Offs Parity Violation in the 1920s Efficiency

13. Honest Mistakes Is Science Self-Correcting? Why Replicate? Time, Unpleasantness, Making Enemies Rocking the Boat Fear of Senior People Reluctance to Hurt Junior People Litigation

14. Honest Mistakes Beyond Physics The Role of Theory The Undetectable Middle Not Expected, Not Spectacular Reproducibility Piltdown, Hideo Noguchi, Cyril Burt

15. Honest Mistakes Beyond Physics, ctd… Team Culture Social Forces Competition & Flux Commerce

16. Detecting Fraud Catching Fraud Uri Geller and the Physicists Planning for Rare Events The Intent Problem Do We Need a Smoking Gun? Statistical “Proofs” Bad/Missing Data Better That Nine Guilty Men Go Free…?

17. How Common is Fraud?

18. How Common is Fraud? Office of Research Integrity 1 inquiry per 60 grants 1 misconduct finding per 500 grants 127 Complaints (2001) Fabrication (35) Falsification (40) Plagiarism (20)

19. How Common is Fraud? New Scientist Survey One-third of all scientists were directly or indirectly aware of cheating. 40% were caught or confessed Only 10% of cheaters were fired.

20. Motives

21. Motives Junior People Imposters Resume Builders Students & Young Faculty Employees

22. High Flyers Woo Suk Hwan Victor Ninov Jan Hendrik Schon

23. High Flyers The Faustian Bargain The Incentives Model Slippery Slopes Psychiatric explanations Betting on Being Right Being First Winning Arguments Talking to Der Alte: Newton & Burt

24. High Flyers Power Cyril Burt Vishwajit Gupta

25. Hoaxers The Human Urge to Hoax Piltdown Crop Circles Big Results Element 118 Archaeopteryx Small Results Do The Data Exist?

26. The Stem Cell Mess

27. Stem Cell Woo Suk Hwang Did clone human blastocysts. Did clone puppy. But: Egg donations from lab workers Efficiency of cloning Creating Cell line from blastocysts Forging samples. Forging data. Forging photos. Paying team members to keep quiet? Hwang’s Defense Protecting womens’ privacy. Stem cells were deliberately swapped… Mess

28. Stem Cell Mess The Fraud Unravels Anonymous tipster Investigative reporters Find the duplicate photos… The US Connection – Gerald Schatten $40K in 15 months Lobbying Science to publish. Becoming a co-author. Failure to oversee manuscript. Failure to ensure that all 25 coauthors approved.

29. Reforms

30. Reforms Time and Money Serendipity Contaminating the Literature Vishwajit Gupta Political Capital

31. Reforms Self-Regulation Incremental Reforms Training Record Keeping Utility and Overhead Co-Author Responsibilities Expanding the Required Conspiracy

32. Reforms Discipline US Approach: “Reasonably Unambiguous and Unacceptable Across all Scientific and Scholarly Disciplines.”

33. Reforms Office of Research Integrity: 9 month process – usually committee- based 33% report matter was not kept confidential because of inquiry’s duration and/or leaks. Only 25% believed university did enough to restore their reputations.

34. Reforms Consequences to Individuals: Short Term: loss of position (17%), loss of promotions or salary (42%), threatened lawsuits, additional allegations, ostracism, reduced support, delays in publication and grants, pressure to admit misconduct. Two-thirds reported that effects continued after the investigation.

35. Reforms Long-Term Consequences to Individuals 39% reported long-term consequences and/or a continuing stigma. 94% continued research and 71% stayed at same institution.

36. Reforms Long-Term Consequences to Individuals Impact on professional reputation (46%) job mobility (30%), networking (24%), presenting papers (39%), research (37%), chairing sessions (30%), serving in elected offices (28%), mental health (78%), physical health (48%), self-esteem (46%), self-identity (39%), relations with spouse (37%).

37. Reforms Consequences Hurting The Accused Hurting the Judges Shifting Workers Out of Research Facilitating Vendettas Judicializing Science Suppressing Unexpected Results Politicizing Science

38. Reforms Danish Committees of Scientific Discovery Bjorn Lomborg (2003) “Objective Dishonesty” Anders Moller (1998-2003) Personalities & Revenge Missing and reconstructed data Is an incorrect calculation fraud?